It was what made this whole Pomeranian-service-dog thing so upsetting. It was impossible to explain to anyone who hadn’t been on the edge of a forest fire just how close it was to being at the gates of hell. Those flames moved fast—faster than most humans could run, let alone a small animal—and were as unpredictable as the wind.

People died out there. Good people, strong people, people who knew what they were getting into and made the decision to fight anyway.

How could he ask this little nugget—yes, nugget—to tackle that with him?

“I’m adding that to the list too,” he muttered as he suppressed a yawn. The warm lull of the puppy’s body had him sinking lower into the mattress. With a quick, furtive look around the room—which was ridiculous for a lot of reasons, but most especially the fact that no one else had been inside it for years—he planted a soft kiss on top of Bubbles’s head.

“Tomorrow, we’ll get everything sorted out,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll make her see reason.” Tomorrow, he’d say a lot of the things that lodged inside his throat and inside his chest.

It was a thing he could promise with absolute certainty because, tomorrow, he was going to get to see Sophie again.

Chapter 5

At first, Sophie wasn’t sure she’d gotten the right house.

The structure itself was about on par with what she’d expected. A grumpy bachelor who spent most of his time battling the elements should live in a huge, ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere. The sense of isolation with each passing mile, the dirt drive leading in, even the weird metal sculpture rusted over and broken at the hinge all seemed to fit Harrison’s personality to a tee.

Rough and grizzled. Unwelcoming.

And, with a little work, probably one of the best things she’d ever seen.

But as the tires of her sleek, little Fiat crunched over the gravel, it wasn’t a brawny, steely-eyed firefighter who appeared at the door. Instead, there stood an older man, tall but gaunt, slowly lifting a cup of coffee to his lips.

“Hello,” Sophie called as she rolled down her window. “I’m looking for where Harrison Parks lives. Do you know if I’m on the right road?”

It took the man a second to absorb her arrival, but he eventually nodded. “You sure are, darling. You found us. Well, most of us, anyway.”

Most of us?

She put the car in park and got out, pausing just long enough to grab her canvas work bag. “I’m Sophie Vasquez,” she said.

She put a hand out too, but the man only stared at her outstretched palm and took another slow sip of his coffee.